Introduction – Europe and Globalization: Recasting the Dynamics of the Relationship

Abstract

In the past decade, globalization has moved from the agendas of international trade negotiations and specialized academic conferences to mass-based politics and the campaigns of activists and politicians across the ideological spectrum, in both advanced industrialized and developing countries. The most highly publicized responses to globalization articulated recently by European actors have assumed negative overtones, ranging from wary to hostile, with the French rejection of the constitutional treaty of the European Union (EU) in May 2005 marking the nadir of this sentiment. French political elites now jostle to carve out political space – and electoral opportunities – on the terrain of globalization, with many describing direct threats posed by global capital to the French social model and employment practices. Indeed, the perceived threat of globalization is reframing the traditional cleavages of French politics, generating new forms of intellectual cohabitation: former Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has decried a “new caste” of media, finance and capital that embraces globalization to the detriment of French workers; Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin of the center-right UMP has similarly called for an “economic patriotism” that can reinvigorate the French economy and protect against the capriciousness of multinational capital (Dombey & Thornhill, 2005).

Citation

Barkey, H.J. and Laible, J. (2006), "Introduction – Europe and Globalization: Recasting the Dynamics of the Relationship", Laible, J. and Barkey, H.J. (Ed.) European Responses to Globalization (Contemporary Studies in Economic and Financial Analysis, Vol. 88), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xi-xxi. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1569-3759(06)88011-3